Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "anne-rice"

The Mummy by Anne Rice

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Anne Rice tackles another classic horror legend in this Edwardian/Egyptian gothic romance.

Egyptologist Lawrence Stratford unearths the archaeological discovery of the century – the tomb of Ramses the Great. Inside, the perfectly preserved mummy of the ancient pharaoh, long believed to have already been discovered and residing in a museum in Cairo. Lawrence begins to transcribe the hieroglyphs and Latin and Greek texts in the tomb, hoping to uncover its mysteries. They refer to an elixir granting eternal life. But before Lawrence can uncover more, he is found dead. Rumours of curses abound – but the truth is far more malign, though the only witness to his murder is the slowly awakening mummy. The mummy is transported to London, where it is held in the Stratford home prior to its acquisition by the British Museum. Lawrence’s daughter, Julie, grieving for a loss of her father, finds herself in danger at the hand of her father’s killer. Rejuvenated by rays of sunlight, Ramses fully awakens and prevents her murder.

Intrigued and terrified, Julie shelters Ramses, watching as he transforms from a shrivelled, dusty corpse into an attractive, handsome man, full of youth and energy, absorbing language as quickly as he consumes food and wine. Having lain dormant for centuries, Ramses quickly adapts to the modern world – he and Julie developing a passionate desire for each other. But Ramses is also haunted by the memories of the last time he was awakened to serve as an advisor to pharaohs – by the last ruler of Ancient Egypt, Cleopatra, with whom he fell in love, who turned down his offer to partake of the elixir if Ramses would not also grant it to her lover, Mark Antony.

Travelling from England to Egypt with Julie and a small group of others, Ramses is staggered by the changes to his homeland, while he struggles to maintain his disguise in the modern world. What the future will hold for him as an immortal surrounded by mortals remains uncertain. Then a chance discovery in a museum leads Ramses to take action that endangers him and all those around him, unleashing an unrelenting force of fury and vengeance.

I love Ancient Egyptian themes and stories set in the Victorian, Edwardian and pre-First World War eras, from which many of the classic gothic horror monsters originate (in their typically recognisable forms in literature and film, that is). We don’t see Egyptian mummies reimagined as frequently as vampires or Frankenstein’s monster, so a new mummy story to delve into is always an exciting prospect. Taking inspiration from classic short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Anne Rice’s ‘The Mummy’ is a romanticised and eroticised version of the concept – Ramses is an immortal hero in the image of a Greek demi-god. Conflicted and at times amoral, he is nonetheless very much the co-protagonist in this tale, rather than the typical antagonist of horror literature. Both the love story and horror unfold throughout the novel, exploring moral questions along the way while under the intense heat of the Egyptian sun, building to a fiery climax and its emotional denouement.

The story reportedly began life as a screenplay for a film, which Rice later turned into a novel instead. A sequel would follow twenty-eight years later with the novel ‘The Passion of Cleopatra’, co-written with Rice’s son Christopher Rice.

Oozing with slow-burning horror and the subtle eroticism that bleeds through Anne Rice’s work, ‘The Mummy’ is a decadent Egyptian delight that will satisfy a desire for a summer romantic-horror fix.



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The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A bewitching gothic family saga crafted with history, horror and romance.

Dr Rowan Mayfair, adopted at a young age, is unaware of the legacy she stands to inherit when her birth mother, Deirdre, reaches the end of her life.

Michael Curry, after being rescued from drowning and a near death experience, finds himself with newfound psychic abilities, while his memories from the other side convince him he has a mission to fulfill.

Rowan and Michael are drawn to each other with a passion and emotion that envelopes and enslaves them, setting them on a path to discover the truth of the Mayfair dynasty and unravel the mysteries at its heart.

'The Witching Hour' is the first novel in Anne Rice's 'Lives of the Mayfair Witches' trilogy, a sublime work of gothic fiction, laced with philosophy, romance, eroticism and horror. Rice's rich and evocative gothic prose is almost lyrical and poetic, sublimely conjuring time and place in each scene and breathing life into the characters through their actions, thoughts and emotions. Dark and atmospheric, with a pervasive evil lurking behind every twist and turn, it lures you in from the beginning and then refuses to relent its grip.

Through a vast cast of characters, each impeccably developed and contributing to moving the narrative forward, we witness the history of the Mayfair family from the very beginning - with the persecution and witch trials in Scotland in the 17th century, travelling to France and Saint Domingue and New Orleans, through to the present day remnants of their legacy of witchcraft; a tale fraught with power, corruption, incest and tragedy.

Through the ages, there is one constant - an entity that is at once dangerous and destructive, charming and seductive. Lasher lurks forever in the shadows, perhaps a faithful familiar, perhaps something demonic with his own malignant motives, a constant companion and lover to the Mayfair Witches. This mystery stretches through the centuries, ever present through the trauma, drama and tragedy experienced by the family.

Deeply immersive, endlessly fascinating and provocative, the novel perfectly evokes the passing expanse of the centuries and the complex web of the characters' lives, culminating in a brutal and disturbing climax. With bursts of graphic imagery and raw emotion, squalour and desperation juxtaposed with glamour and indulgence, marinated in sin and debauchery, moulded with history and spiritualism, magic and science, while forever shrouded in a haunting and gothic atmosphere, this saga has everything you could wish for and more. I'm very excited to read the first sequel, 'Lasher', and also highly anticipating the upcoming TV adaptation.

Spellbinding and suspenseful, 'The Witching Hour' is a chilling and seductive masterpiece that takes you on an epic journey that leaves you exhilarated, fulfilled and gasping for more.



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Lasher by Anne Rice

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A dark and alluring gothic supernatural thriller, continuing the family saga of the Mayfair witches.

Rowan Mayfair has vanished without a trace. Her husband Michael Curry has been hospitalised since the night of her disappearance. The rest of the Mayfair clan gather around – speculating, in denial, hovering like vultures.

An ancient evil, the demonic entity Lasher, now walks the realm of the living, born of flesh and blood, after centuries of fulfilling the role of dutiful familiar to the Mayfair witches.

Lasher is pursuing his own insidious endgame, a chilling scheme to populate the earth with his progeny.

‘Lasher’ is the second novel in the ‘Lives of the Mayfair Witches’ trilogy by Anne Rice. A dark and twisted Gothic family saga, laced with horror, romance, erotica, philosophy and faith, Rice’s luscious, immersive prose takes us on a delicious and horrific journey into the forbidden, delving back in time and further exploring the past of the Mayfair family, building on the events of the first novel, moving the narrative forwards with a twist of speculative and science fiction, as we meet the wider family in the present day and dig deeper into secrets entwined within their history.

Rice weaves a sublime mix of horror and eroticism, history and villainy, the novel immediately and relentlessly capturing us under its spell. A complex, multi-layered narrative, swirling in mystery and suspense, at times disturbing, often thought-provoking, it explores themes of good and evil, pleasure and pain, genetics and evolution, religion and mythology, survival and sacrifice, forgiveness and vengeance, combining in a mesmerising concoction to tell a tale of power, corruption and tragedy.

Picking up where ‘The Witching Hour’ left off, Rowan has disappeared, escaping with the newborn Lasher after he left Michael for dead. Suffering a dizzying mix of confused emotions, Rowan is imprisoned and raped by her demonic offspring, as he follows his warped desires to impregnate and pleasure her, while experiencing life in the flesh after centuries as a spirit. Meanwhile, Michael returns home from hospital, a lost and broken man, fearing what has become of Rowan and the abomination that was his newborn child.

We are also introduced to the fourteenth designee of the legacy, Mona, only thirteen years old. Intellectually, emotionally and sexually advanced beyond her years, Mona’s relationships are amongst the most controversial elements of the novel. No matter her power and ambition, she is undoubtedly another victim of the curse of the Mayfair legacy and its twisted, seductive darkness. This curse is manifesting in a series of brutal deaths befalling the Mayfair women, the result of rapes and miscarriages, further culmination of a legacy of abuse, incest and trauma. As Rowan manages to affect her escape, she is left comatose after giving birth to yet another unnatural creature.

An encounter with the spirit of Julien Mayfair deepens our understanding of Mayfair history. In the first novel, there was always the feeling there was more to learn from Julien, never regarded as an official designee of the legacy despite his immense power (as interesting reversal of our patriarchal society in that the lineage of witchcraft is a matriarchy) and his relationship with Lasher. We return to perhaps the most decadent period of the Mayfair family’s past, experiencing it from Julien’s perspective, learning of other critical events that occurred surrounding and enriching what we already know.

The mysterious organisation, the Talamasca, investigators of paranormal phenomena through the centuries, continues to be a lurking presence, and may not be as benign and neutrally observant as they claim, leading their own agents Aaron and Yuri to question their motives and turn their backs on them. Through Julien’s story and the involvement of the Talamasca, we unearth Lasher’s history and the mystery of his identity, escalating to a climatic confrontation when we finally hear his confession, which takes us back in British history to a time period that ties beautifully with its religious history and the witchcraft hysteria that will come to grip the country in the succeeding century, when the legacy of the Mayfair witches began and tied them inextricably with the prophecy of the Taltos.

Bewitching and enthralling, ‘Lasher’ is an intense second chapter in an epic gothic saga of witchcraft. I am eagerly anticipating discovering how the trilogy concludes in the final novel, ‘Taltos’.



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